Cars Hands-on

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It's simple, but that's good.

By Mark Bozon

On Tuesday August 15, THQ was nice enough to give a handful of local NYC press members (as well as a few of us coast-to-coast groupies) a chance to go hands-on with their four guaranteed launch titles for Nintendo Wii. The list, previously unconfirmed in its entirety, includes Avatar, Barnyard, Cars, and SpongeBob Square Pants. While all four were show in playable form running on Wii development kits, it's important to note that many of the games (specifically Cars and Avatar) were direct adaptations from the GameCube versions, still in a very preliminary state. Even still, the select group had a great time handing out at Dylan's Candy Bar in the heart of New York City, eating our fill of tasty candy, and playing nearly six hours of Wii. Not a bad way to spend a Tuesday afternoon. Be sure to check out each of our hands-on impressions for all four games as we all continue the countdown to launch.

Cars: When looking at the overall amount of content available at today's show, Cars comes up as a very strange abnormality. On one hand, the game offered only one main level to play, and nearly no overall indication of furthering Wii implementation from what brief areas we saw. On the other hand, as surprising as it may be, it was the most solid of conversions, and actually the most fun and natural Wii experiences at the show. Is this an indication that simple is good on the Nintendo system? Maybe. But more than that, it's an indication that one solid design can really set apart mediocre and above-average overall feel to a Wii game, something that makes the system have a constant "Put up or shut up" aura around it. Oddly enough, Cars delivers even in one small demo level, as it's simply a solid control conversion.

Yeah yeah... he's Lightning McQueen.

We have a distinct feeling that the racing genre is going to be seriously overplayed (along with the first-person shooter) on the Wii hardware. It's just so simple to take a motion sensing controller, turn it on its side, and make it a racing wheel. Tony Hawk is doing it, Excite Truck is doing it, Sonic is actually doing it (though it isn't a racing game, but a tilt-based arcade platformer), Need For Speed will most likely do it, and now Cars is doing it. Hell, even WarioWare, Barnyard, and SpongeBob have it included as a mini-game already.

Though it may already seem like a bit of overkill, it does at least ensure Wii gamers that we'll be getting a few solid racers by the end of the system's life, and from the looks of it Cars may be a perfect one for younger Nintendo fans. The controls for the game is simple: Tilt to turn, Button 1 for boost, Button 2 for accelerate, B for brake (located in the trigger position), D-pad left for drifting, D-pad right for tilting the car, and both up and down for changing the view. In reality though, that's all it really takes, as the tilt control already feels very on par with an analog stick, and the use of drifting and boost makes the game feel as good as the Cube version in this initial state, with the possibility of more fine-tuning before launch.

In fact, aside from the main control, there really isn't much more to say about the game. Cars uses the same approach as Excite Truck, and even maps the jump ability to a quick flip up on the controller to catch air. It's a simple conversion from the original game, but it's also intuitive. From a visual standpoint, the game still looked exactly like a Cube game, and we're expecting it to receive a graphical bump before launch. There should be no problem adding Wii-mote to the game, so there's plenty of time to ramp up on the visuals. No word has been given yet as to whether or not the game will include 480p and widescreen support, but it's obviously a goal that THQ is going for, and would be very helpful. We expect to see a bit more tuning for the finer points of steering (perhaps increasing the maximum turn ability just a tad), but for an initial playthrough we can happily report that the game felt smooth, controlled well, and most importantly, was fun.